About Us

My name is Carl Stewart and I have always love billiards, pockets billiards or pool whatever it is called I have played it and loved it all my life. All my reports in grade school were on the history and details of the games.

I grew up in a very small town on the Oregon coast and never really got to experience the game expect in my family basement until I became of age and were able to play in the bars. Then when I was about 22 years old, a man moved to my little town from Reno NV and opened a “real” pool hall. I drove by the building and asked him every day when he was going to open for at least two months before he did open the doors. To say I was a “regular” would be an understatement. Lots of time on my hands and a love for the game equaled hours upon hours in his pool hall and of course, I became very close friends with the owners and I am still to this day.

Inside the pool community, I learned of a tournament in Reno NV (which is now known as the bar table open). That was my first real big tournament and wow, I loved it and have been hooked on big tournaments ever since.

That pool hall experience lasted a few years and then it was gone. A few years later, I found myself married with a new baby boy, living in Sacramento CA, and needing to grow up fast. I found two more great pool halls in Sacramento the first one was Hard Times Billiards and Jointed Cue.    

These are both family owned and I ended up getting to know both of them. I worked at hard times running tournaments and running my own cue repair business inside a closet they rented me and earned my first college degree. Seven years later, it was time move on to Tucson AZ.

I found two great but much smaller pool halls here and have continued to play and get a couple more Masters Degrees. During my time in Tucson, I kept being approached about giving lesson so I open the Arizona Billiard Academy, LLC and became a BCA certified instructor. My love for teaching has pushed me to become an active college professor in addition.

We are called the Arizona Billiard Academy for simple fact I do service all of AZ and I am willing to create a lesson plan and package that fits anyone’s needs. As for the latest advancements at ABA there are a few. The biggest one has to be the fact I reached the third out of fourth level inside the BCA now called Professional Billiard Instructor Association (PBIA) system. I am now an Advanced level instructor which I am very proud of and have taken years and hundreds of hours of teaching to achieve. As some of you may know at the advanced level I can make new instructors. I have started with a few players that showed interest in becoming a PBIA recognized instructor. If you have any interest in becoming an Instructor just let me know. Last year at BCAPL at the Rio I really enjoyed teaching inside of Randy G’s room and planning on it again this year. 

The ABA is working on getting a “goodie bag” for my students that will include training material, discount or offers, products for tip shaping and shaft cleaning. I have a ton of PDF’s some are up on the website and I have been printing the documents in the past but I am in search of a few new ways to enhance and deliver the information.    

Thanks for taking the time to read this update and I hope to see you all out there playing and having fun.

The student and teacher relationship is very important to me personally. I have taken many of hours of lessons.

Let me share some of the problems I have encountered over the years

• Instructors not starting at my current skill level - I felt I had to pay for the information in all the lessons just to receive what I needed.
• Instructors that do not play any high level competition - it was always hard for me to believe someone that has never been under the "BIG" pressure.
• Being told there is only one way to do something.
• Low rated handicapped instructors.
• Being told you have to practice 8 hours a day and if you do not improve, it is not their fault, you did not practice enough.

Here are some of the ways I try to help and (not) make those same mistakes when I teach.

• I "test" my student in the first half an hour of the lesson to see their current level. I go forward from there. The student's playing ability dictates what level the training relationship will begin.
  
  
• I personally play at a high level of competition with large entree fees and highly skilled opponents (Semi-Pro). This has helped my game develop in the "pressure spots." There are tricks I have learned to help deal with the pressure. I pass these tricks on to my students.
  
  
• If you take a lesson from me, you will find that I believe no two people are built the same. For example, I have a student whose arm was wounded in the war. He is never going to "stroke" like the book shows. That does not mean he cannot play great pool.
  
  
• I will have you practice but I will not take the fun out of the game.